Wynter Gordon

Since co-writing Mary J. Blige's "Gonna Breakthrough" (2005), Diana Gordon has had a winding career as a composer, producer, and vocalist, bounding as a recording artist between pop-oriented club tracks and bedroom slow jams, topping Billboard's Dance Club chart with "Dirty Talk" (2010), issuing the With the Music I Die EP (2011), and self-releasing the ballad-oriented Pure EP (2018). All the while, the artist alternately known as Wynter Gordon has been featured on tracks headlined by EDM producers such as David Guetta, Steve Aoki, and Laidback Luke, and has co-written songs for numerous artists, including Flo Rida (the Top Five pop hit "Sugar") and Beyoncé (three tracks off Lemonade). Diana Gordon developed her talents for dancing, songwriting, and singing as a youngster in her native Queens. Shortly after attending LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan, she landed her first writing credit on Mary J. Blige's "Gonna Breakthrough," a central track on the singer's multi-platinum 2005 album The Breakthrough. This led to an assortment of writing credits highlighted by Flo Rida's "Sugar," a number five pop hit in 2009. Gordon also stepped out from the background in 2009 to be featured on David Guetta's "Toyfriend." The following year, Gordon made her debut as a headlining artist for the Atlantic-distributed Big Beat label with "Dirty Talk," which topped Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart. By year's end, Big Beat compiled The First Dance, an EP-sized set that gathered previously released tracks, remixes, and new material. An EP of strictly new songs, With the Music I Die, followed in 2011. During the next few years, Gordon continued to mix background and foreground output, writing for Ciara and Angel Haze, and writing and appearing on tracks by Steve Aoki ("Ladi Dadi"), Laidback Luke ("Speak Up"), and Major Lazer ("Keep Cool"). In 2015, a brief recording association with EMI's Harvest division yielded Five Needle, an EP of dramatic yet atmospheric pop. A pair of sonically denser, slightly left-of-center singles for 4AD were released in 2016, the same year Gordon's name appeared in the writing credits beneath three titles -- "Don't Hurt Yourself," "Sorry," and "Daddy Lessons" -- on Beyoncé's platinum Lemonade. Gordon returned as an independent artist in 2018 with Pure, a small batch of frank, contemporary ballads. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi